ZSE forecasts difficult trading year

Conrad Mwanawashe
THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchange has forecast a difficult trading year for listed companies with some reporting below market expectation results for the period to December 13.
“I’m sure you are seeing how the stock exchange is operating in terms of that there is quite a bit of weakness in the market place because of what’s happening in the economy.
“As you might have seen, a lot of foreigners are out of the market and yes you find that there’s pressure on the price. I can tell you that this is going to be a difficult year,” said ZSE chief executive Mr Alban Chirume.

Mr Chirume said the bourse has signed an agreement with Infotech Middle East FZ LLC for the supply and installation of the Capizar Automated Trading System which is expected to go live before the end of the year.

Following the signing of the agreement on Wednesday, the Infotech is expected to study the local environment, carry out a gap analysis followed by the procurement and construction of hardware and the data centre.

“We are expecting that in three to four months’ time the project will be in the training and acceptance testing stages with the final live date being our target within a period of six months from now,” said Mr Chirume.

Without disclosing the value of the agreement, Mr Chirume said “nearly all the money would have been paid” by the time the ZSE starts trading on the ATS.

The ATS will see the stock market converted into an electronic system to from the current manual trading.

“The negotiations under way include liability, protection of the software, and we will be working on disaster recovery site in case something happens to the primary site,” Mr Chirume said.

“The coming on board of Infotech and their expertise places the ZSE in a good position for a safe and successful implementation,” he added.